In separate incidents in Akita Prefecture, two men were attacked and killed while they were picking wild bamboo shoots. The bodies of both men had extensive bite and scratch marks.

An adult Ussuri brown bear can grow up to 1,200 lbs and there are an estimated 3,000 such bears on Hokkaido.

The prefecture was also the site of the worst bear attack in Japan, when an Ussuri brown bear attacked villagers in Sankebetsu, killing seven people over the space of six days in December 1915. It was subsequently shot dead and found to weigh 749 lbs and nearly 9 feet tall.